Shocking but true: Internet slows with undersea cable disruptions

Poor cable broke at least three other times in the last two years.  It is a dang long cable, though.

SteinNebraska wrote:

Poor cable broke at least three other times in the last two years.  It is a dang long cable, though.

The one that comes out of Australia is 28000 klms long, yet has very few issues in 20 years. Maybe Australia used a better quality cable.

Are people still having issues? I found the following article/website and am just trying to get as much information as possible, since the internet gets terribly slow starting around 8AM

https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-ale … 7-update-1

Per the article, it was only expected to last until July 7th, and that was the first update.
I haven't been able to find anything else, but would like to know if anyone else has any information they can contribute or know of, just so I can be aware.

Some additional information:
My ISP provider: VNPT
I work online, and due to needing access to the internet pretty much all the time, this has been extremely disruptive to my work.

Is the general idea that if a cable breaks underwater, suck it up and deal with it, or do I need a different internet provider? I'm getting mixed results in terms of VNPT, or FPT being better for home wifi. Previously I used FPT and had lots of issues as well, but I personally cannot say one is better than the other.

Any information is much appreciated.

Any information is much appreciated.

I have FPT & its chronic here after about 7 or 8 pm. Started about a couple of weeks back.

goodolboy wrote:

I have FPT & its chronic here after about 7 or 8 pm. Started about a couple of weeks back.

I'm also with FPT but the problem just started yesterday.  Uploading documents is fine but uploading photos is not.  I fell to sleep a few times waiting for photos to upload.

Same here.. photos uploading don't happen some days so I'm left to either shut down and risk anything I worked on or just Sayre at the circle going round and round .

Viettel here and same times 7-8 pm every day for the last week or so

Damn sharks

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Same here.. photos uploading don't happen some days so I'm left to either shut down and risk anything I worked on or just Sayre at the circle going round and round .

Viettel here and same times 7-8 pm every day for the last week or so

Damn sharks

OMG tonight has got to be the worst internet speed ever

goodolboy wrote:

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Same here.. photos uploading don't happen some days so I'm left to either shut down and risk anything I worked on or just Sayre at the circle going round and round .

Viettel here and same times 7-8 pm every day for the last week or so

Damn sharks

OMG tonight has got to be the worst internet speed ever

Imagine needing to upload work assignment to a server in the US that has at least a dozen large images.. the spinning circle of depression logo going round and round..


Oddly though media bo on zalo never gets affected.. regular as clockwork.. new message offering ringtones or some.other crap..

Actually, the most recent problems with the internet were probably linked to this:

A DNS outage just took down a large chunk of the internet

https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/22/a-dns … -internet/

Hmm but only between 7-8 pm for me... So unlikely to be the issue most of us seem to be having

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Imagine needing to upload work assignment to a server in the US that has at least a dozen large images.. the spinning circle of depression logo going round and round..

That's me.  Not work assignment but my own blog with multiple photos and the server is in the States.  That's the reason I fell to sleep many times while waiting.

Hm.  There have been a few slowdowns for me that could last up to 20 minutes, and a few times some sites were unreachable, but I haven't been seriously inconvenienced.  Of course, I don't often upload anything, which makes a big difference. 

I use Viettel, and the speed test I just did says 106.1 Mbps download and 6.72 Mbps upload on a WiFi connection.

https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/202 … 62167.html

"Tuesday, July 20, 2021, 16:12 GMT 7
Another error has been detected along one of Vietnam's major submarine cable systems, just one week after previous repair work was finished."

Maybe it's not fixed yet.

I realized that I shouldn't have so low an upload speed with the service and wireless chip I have, so I checked for a wireless driver update.  I found a recent one and installed it and now I get 107.27 download and 108.22 upload.  So it's good I read this thread.

Mine averages 80mbs up load and download.. but still very slow to actually upload, makes me think Viettel has some form of bandwidth shaping software running

Jlgarbutt wrote:

Mine averages 80mbs up load and download.. but still very slow to actually upload, makes me think Viettel has some form of bandwidth shaping software running

Just had two consecutive speed tests.  The first with VPN from Singapore which showed 160 down and 62.9 up.  The second without VPN from FPT (my provider) in Saigon, which showed 5 pings, 160.37 down, and 159.70 up.

Those were the same numbers I got the day the Wifi package (Super 150) was installed but it was very slow uploading the last few days.  Hopefully it'll continue to be better today.

To everyone who has posted in this thread so far, thank you very much as this has helped me tremendously in terms of what to expect. The articles above have helped me understand the situation a lot more. Sounds like a cable broke, and once it's fixed then I can expect stable internet again. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Some additional information that I can provide on my side that may help someone down the road as well~
-----
Site: speedtest.net

Location: Hanoi
Server: BizFly Cloud - VCCorp
ping: 5 ms
download: 57.48 mbps
upload: 59.73 mbps

Location: Hanoi
Server: Comcast - Chicago, IL (Central US)
ping: 278 ms
download: 0.1 mbps
upload: 25.13
with A LOT of jitter (download and upload speed fluctuate a lot during test)
-----

Yesterday, with it being the start of the weekend, I was able to stay up late and notice the following throughout the day.

From around 8am onwards, the internet speed started to drop for US-based services. Around midnight, almost exactly on the dot, all US services started to run very quickly again. This gives a (very inconvenient) 8 hour window where I can work comfortably with US-based services, but the timing makes it very difficult to work with.

Not sure if this is only for VNPT, or my building, but thought this might help someone, somewhere.

Sounds like a cable broke, and once it's fixed then I can expect stable internet again. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Well dont hold your breath on that hope, its only about 6 months since it last happened & then as I remember it lasted about a month till it got fixed. In the last 6 years since I moved here to HCMC from Tay Ninh that cable has been eaten by sharks or the same shark regularly about twice a year! I am a conservationist & animal lover at heart but I think its time they got the "shark bounty hunter" in or might be biting the bullet replacing the cable is the answer.

To anyone still here and monitoring these posts, Supposedly things have been fixed. I myself haven't noticed any increase in speed with VNPT, so I've put in a formal complaint and they said they will "look into it". I don't have much hope, but passing along the information in case it helps someone.

https://en.vietnamplus.vn/aag-undersea- … 205749.vnp

Jarjarhead wrote:

To anyone still here and monitoring these posts, Supposedly things have been fixed. I myself haven't noticed any increase in speed with VNPT, so I've put in a formal complaint and they said they will "look into it". I don't have much hope, but passing along the information in case it helps someone.

https://en.vietnamplus.vn/aag-undersea- … 205749.vnp

I have just been ignoring the 8-9pm time to use the internet for anything work related.

Even at those times instill get a reported 70-75mbs..but uploads are terribly laggy which makes me think some sort of bandwidth shaping or monitoring is going on

Maybe they do occasionally clean out junk cached files or inappropriate content.. who knows.. it's bloody annoying when it hapens